


Neophytes

by pigeonstatueconundrum



Series: Neophytes & Nomads [1]
Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Exorcisms, Loss of Faith, M/M, exorcists that aren't Catholic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 12:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12653331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonstatueconundrum/pseuds/pigeonstatueconundrum
Summary: Loving Father Tomas Ortega is so easy he never made a consciences decision about it.  And it’s cheating, God does Marcus know it’s cheating, to use Tomas as prism in which his faith refracts. He has given is heart to this man, is it right to hand over his faith so easily too.





	Neophytes

 

Loving Tomas, Marcus has noted, is better in theory than in practise.

 

That’s alright, honestly, He’s a (former) priest, and he’s used to paradoxes. He tied his star to  trusting an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient being too long ago now to start questioning it. These complexities and contradictions in life, however, still hold joy for Tomas, so much so that’ it’s hard to remember that his friend is not Marcus’ long lost zeal and passion come back to taunt him.  Tomas sees the beauty in the ineffable, the first true smile of the un-possessed and the uncalled for kindness of strangers. Marcus has been burnt out for too long to think that way again.  He resents Tomas and can even hate him for it on a bad day, but he can’t not love him for it.

 

Marcus wonders if rationalising human connection is such a problem for other people. Childhood patricide and abuse was never going to encourage any lasting connections during his formative years. His relationship with Bennet, loaded as it is with decades of resentment and disappointment, is the closest thing Marcus has. The only people in his life with any permanence are other Exorcists.

 

The situation with Tomas is unusual. Catholic Exorcists rarely work together, it’s just you and the power of God, and He has never been a chatty companion. Even before he lost the respect of Rome he rarely met his fellow Exorcists.

 

The existence of Exorcists of other faiths is tacitly acknowledged by Rome if not encouraged. But Marcus always found whatever happened in the field couldn’t hurt Bennett until he found out about it much, much, later. He’s spent jetlagged morning getting his body clock back in-sink sharing overpriced airport water with a young Hindu scholar nervously pouring through the Atharva Veda before his first exorcism. He’d watched the Horowitz brothers and the ten frighteningly competent men that made up their minyan exorcise a demon, Marcus’ voice joining the echoing of the Psalms.

 

Despite their shared profession, these men and women that flittered in an out of Marcus’ life shared very little else. They were all nomadic in nature sent out into the world at the whim of their deities. But at the end of the day they were sadly human. They gossiped and passed along information as any loose group of acquaintances would. In the many idle moments after being thrown away by the church he wondered how his own fall from grace had been reported.   

 

Like most of the Exorcists Marcus had known Anabia Mahmood never went out of her way to talk to others. She was someone others talked about. Her notoriety coming from her prowess as well as her sordid past. Marcus had never pried and she had never offered.   He could be charming when he wanted to be and sometimes she was willing to be charmed, within the limits of their faith and their profession.

 

 

Her call came unexpectedly six hours after a long and difficult exorcism that hadn’t left him and Tomas unscarred. Marcus had spent most of that time pressing at cold compress to Tomas’ cheek, eyes down cast in fear of seeing regret in Tomas’ eyes.

 

“You’re  back,” She  had simply stated as if she had never doubted. That quiet faith was enough for him to throw their bags into the latest in a series of anonymously rented cars and drive south.   

 

Anabia is already waiting for them by the time they pull into the rest stop. She raises a hand absently in greeting, her attention already resettled on the folder in front of her on the picnic table. Both men were working on half a night’s sleep. The knifes edge of euphoria of a job well done long bled away after a night and a day on the crowded highway. The scratch on Tomas’ cheek is still red and angry and Marcus had spent the drive resisting the urge to press his lips to it. Frustrated, Marcus leaves Tomas to make introductions, refusing to be invested in any impressions that were being made on either side. He buys a pitcher of beer and forces the bartender to find a cocktail umbrella to put into Anabia’s cranberry juice just so she’ll raise her eyebrows at him visibly under her Niqab.

 

Tomas has positioned himself next to Anabia causing a flare of something under Marcus’ sternum, until he notices that the other priest has chosen his seat as to block the sightline of a group of overly curious men on the next table over.  Anabia’s look of amusement is for Tomas this time it seems. Her wordless approval means nothing, Marcus reminded himself as he fills Tomas’ glass proprietorially.

 

As with most of his interactions with the other Exorcist, Anabia keeps the conversation strictly business.

 

“They won’t let me in to see her.” She explains resigned. Across the table Tomas is vibrating with frustration, crinkling the pages of evidence Anabia has compiled. “Their daughter was actually screaming upstairs and they still wouldn’t let me in.”

 

“How did you hear of it?” Marcus asks.

 

“The neighbours. They remembered me back when I was…” she shakes her head of the mental connection, “Anyway. Their daughter, Mariam, plays with Sophie. When the Jinn started to manifest in the girl she told her parents who called me.”

 

Tomas is stuck staring at picture in the packet. Two little girls with matching school uniform captured in moment of pure happiness. Marcus gently pried the picture from Tomas’ unresisting fingers.

 

“I am no help to her on the other side of a barred door.” Anabia continued, kindly ignoring the telling moment. “Sophie Bauman needs help now and there is no point wasting time to sooth my wounded pride.”

 

“Will you stay?” Marcus asks, already knowing the answer.

 

Anabia shook her head, “I’m called elsewhere. There are so few of us these days.”

 

 

Later, Marcus looks with experienced eyes at the house with its overly clean windows and election sign still hammered into the solitary dying patch of grass and knows. Without even entering he knows what he will find. He has lived too long a life to let himself be surprised by where evil takes its nest. The wife who will hustle them upstairs, past the unmoving human lump only illuminated by a television screen worth more than anything else in the house. The child’s bible discoloured by a lifetime forgotten from one house move to the next.  The photos hoarded under the bed by a child that has already learnt what is acceptable rather than right.

 

But in his heart, that unexamined depth which resembles more and more the face of the man at his side, he hopes it will be different. Before he knocks he squeezes Tomas’ arm and he isn’t sure who he is trying to reassure. 

 

It’s friendship bracelets rather than photographs this time. Marcus finds them under bed when he’s forced to strap Sophie Bauman to her bed so the thing inside her can’t throw her against the wall. There’s a shoe box overflowing with a rainbow of knotted string, and tiny elastic bands bound together. At the top of the pile there’s one half, teal and pink beads shaped into M-A-R-I- before trailing into nothing. Marcus places them on the bedside table and smooths the hair from Sophie’s sleeping face.  

 

Frustration had driven Tomas from the room. Nearly a week of sharing the house with the Bauman’s, the demon and Marcus had left Tomas antsy, victory always one catechism away. The complexities and contradictions are never clearer than during an exorcism. They can be stood together, the words flowing through them, hand in hand reaching for the ineffable love that could cleanse the devil himself and in the next have speech abandon them as fear, longing and need for understanding conflagrated to fury. When their belief in the Almighty needs to be at its strongest it’s their faith in each other that is sorely tested.

 

Marcus watches Tomas from the window as he paces in the Bauman’s yard.  His eyes are closed, lips moving rapidly, knuckles white and they grip together in prayer. His plea rises in steam in the evening air, the nights already turning cold. He must be praying for himself, Marcus thinks, as he presses his own hand to the window in silent absolution. Unseen by Tomas the other girl from Anabia’s photograph quickly exits the house next door. Her tiny body swaddled in dressing gown and slippers as she slips across the lawn towards the tall off-white fence dividing the properties.

 

Thomas notices Mariam after a minute, turning his surprised startle into a smile for the girl, much to Marcus’ delight. She climbs up on an old bike with practised ease to put her head over the slats and asks Tomas a question that Marcus cannot hear through the glass. Tomas places a gentle hand on the girls shoulder as the answer he gives only saddens her. Marcus cannot see Tomas’ face as he talks to the girl in days last light.  Through the gloom he can make out the understanding tilt of Tomas’ shoulders and the resolute look in her wide eyes even as tears stain her cheek. She points up at Marcus in the window who sheepishly waves back, He shares an embarrassed look with Tomas who smiles back, his previous irritation long gone.

 

Mariam’s mother comes out of the house, the fear in her eyes checked as she spots her child with the priest. She exchanges a few words with Tomas as she scoops her daughter up into her arms. Before she is hustled away Mariam hands something to Tomas from the depth of her dressing gown pocket.    

 

Marcus sits down heavily, suddenly feeling the lack of sleep and results in every fibre of his being. He says his own prayer into the night to whoever might be listening. Deep in thought he comes back to himself only at the hand on his shoulder.

 

“She wanted me to give Sophie this.” Tomas showed him the white braided cord small enough for a child’s wrist. “Her mother said she wanted to give us white gloves too but suspected that conversation was not to be had tonight.”

 

“She’s been talking to Auntie Anabia.” Marcus stretches in such a way to not dislodge Tomas’ hand still resting on his shoulder. 

 

Loving God is hard. It is a struggle every day to commit to the saving power that has only left a tingling in his hands and questions in his heart. It hurts, it’s always hurt and it is going to hurt him again and again. There is a little girl and she needs his help and to question why he was given the power to help her is to question his own existence.

 

Loving Father Tomas Ortega is so easy he never made a consciences decision about it.   Because belief for Tomas is like breathing. His soul radiates faith so purely that even after minutes of meeting him that little girl trusted him to save her best friend. And it’s cheating, God does Marcus know it’s cheating, to use Tomas as prism in which his faith refracts. He has given is heart to this man, is it right to hand over his faith so easily too.

 

Handing over the broken shell of Marcus Keane to omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient being was a challenge, a plea for reason in the maelstrom. You created me this way you had better have a use in mind. To put his faith in Tomas is embrace the unknown. Which Marcus has been reliably informed is the foundation of faith.

 

Tomas offers his other hand and Marcus takes it without another thought. As he gathers his rosary and Bible he watches Tomas slip the bracelet onto Sophie’s wrist the bright colour stark against the blooming bruises.

 

“Ready?” Tomas asks.

 

Loving Tomas, Marcus knows, is better in theory than in practise. But he has a lifetime of experience in loving the ineffable. After all what kind of Exorcist would he be without his faith.  

**Author's Note:**

> This was a purely selfish exercise on my part to turn an evenings bored googling of ‘Exorcisms in different faiths’ into something 'useful???'. As always with most of my fics do it's turned into mopey religious reflection which i can only apologize.
> 
> As you've come his far already please please leave a comment or any criticisms you may have. Thank you for indulging me. 
> 
> I can be found at http://pigeonstatueconundrum.tumblr.com/


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